Category: Albums of the 80s

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#847 in the Series) is the self-titled debut from Silver Condors Silver Condor is one of those bands that didn’t develop much of a following. With some of the ingredients of their first album, it is kind of amazing that it went as unnoticed as it did. First of all, the lead guitarist was Earl Slick who played on John & Yoko’s Double Fantasy album and David Bowie’s Young Americans and was on the Diamond Dogs Tour. Slick was introduced to Joe Cerisano, vocalist and principal songwriter for Silver Condor, by Ian Hunter from Mott the Hoople. To finish it off, the album was produced by Mike Flicker, who is credited with...

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Answering Machine” by The Replacements When they were good, they were really great. But when The Replacements were bad, they were truly awful. Seeing The Replacements in concert was always a crap shoot. Whether it was boredom from being on the road, or just youthful blowing off steam, you never really knew what you were going to get when you went to see the “Placemats.” Heck, I saw them five times during their heyday, and I think they were really good only twice. I’m not sure if that makes me a sucker for punishment, or just addicted to the greatness that I did witness when they did come to play....

2013 marks the 25th anniversary of the great album Starfish from the Australian band The Church. The album was released on February 16th, 1988. It featured the bands first US hit, “Under The Milky Way.” The album peaked at #41 here on the Billboard Top 200 Album chart and “Under The Milky Way” peaked at #26 on the Hot 100 Singles chart. ——————————————————————————— Track listing “Destination” (Kilbey/Willson-Piper/Koppes/Ploog) “Under the Milky Way” (Kilbey/Jansson) “Blood Money” (Kilbey/Willson-Piper/Koppes/Ploog) “Lost” (Kilbey/Willson-Piper/Koppes/Ploog) “North, South, East And West” (Kilbey/Willson-Piper/Koppes/Ploog) “Spark” (Willson-Piper) “Antenna” (Kilbey/Willson-Piper/Koppes/Ploog) “Reptile” (Kilbey/Willson-Piper/Koppes/Ploog) “A New Season” (Koppes) “Hotel Womb” (Kilbey) Here’s the personnel listing for the original recording Personnel Steve Kilbey: bass guitar, lead vocals Peter Koppes: guitars, lead vocal on...

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Catfish John” by Jerry Garcia Band It was a tale of two Jerries. By 1980 Jerry Garcia had his day job with the Grateful Dead. During that year, the band released the somewhat weak studio album, Go To Heaven, and took to the road to promote it. While the 1979-1980 shows generally found the band in excellent form, in order to keep things interesting for the fans and themselves, they performed some very special shows. They kicked off their 15th anniversary celebration (1965-1980) with residencies at Radio City Music Hall in New York City and at The Warfield Theater in San Francisco. The shows revived the format of an acoustic...

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Under Heavy Manners” by Robert Fripp with David Byrne After the demise of King Crimson in 1974, Robert Fripp spent several years laying low before entering a period of high activity from 1977-1980, resulting in some of his most interesting collaborations. Starting in 1977, Fripp joined Brian Eno in Germany to add guitar parts to David Bowie’s “Heroes.” This was followed by Fripp’s production of albums for Daryl Hall (Sacred Songs), Peter Gabriel (his second album with the “Scratch” cover) and the eponymously titled album by The Roches, plus sessions with an amalgam of like-minded artists including Peter Hammill (of Van Der Graaf Generator), Brian Eno, Blondie (on Parallel Lines),...

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Make It With You” by Bread To some, Bread’s brand of soft rock was nothing more than insipid drivel. To others they were purveyors of well-crafted, easy listening staples that provided some of the greatest guilty pleasures to be heard on AM radio during the early ‘70s. To me, their songs were minor annoyances that didn’t make me rush to change the station when they used to pop up on the radio, but now their heavenly brand of melody-driven soft rock provides a welcome dose of nostalgia for the wonder years every time I hear them. When they released their first eponymously titled album in 1969, the band consisted of...

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Moon/Light” by Herbie Hancock and Foday Musa Suso In West African culture, a griot is a musician and storyteller who holds all of the keys to the history of his people. It is the griot’s place in society to share that history through music, entertainment and poetry. The kora is a 21-string instrument that is the chief instrument accompanying a griot. Foday Musa Suso was born in Gambia and is a direct descendent of the inventor who invented the musical instrument over four hundred years ago. Now anyone who’s ever heard the music of the kora, no doubt, has fallen under its spell. It is a string instrument that has...

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Good Year For The Roses” by Elvis Costello & The Attractions – They were young, drunk, marketed as punk rockers and cut loose in Nashville, Tennessee, behaving very badly. Such was the backdrop for Elvis Costello and the Attraction’s album-length foray into straight-ahead Country music back in 1981. Costello was coming off a white-hot streak of records including 1977’s My Aim Is True, followed by “This Year’s Model” in 1978, Armed Forces in 1979, and both Trust and the 20-track Get Happy record in 1980, all stuffed to the gills with self-penned classic songs. Add to that the 20-track Taking Liberties album that gathered up the rest of the stray...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#812 in the Series) is Digital Sex, Essence Do you know this one? No you say? I somewhat expected that. No, not because the band wasn’t good enough or deserving enough because they indeed were. They were quite good but they were unfortunate to be another one of those talented acts that fell through the cracks. I don’t remember seeing them on MTV and that was the quickest and easiest way to get your name in front of people back in 1986. This was the indie rock of the time period. This was an Indie rock act back when you didn’t have the internet to help promote the little guy. It...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#806 in the Series) is Yes, Drama I feel it necessary to give a disclaimer at the beginning of this review. Yes always has been and always will be my favourite band. Further, I believe Jon Anderson is not only the greatest singer of all time, but also my favourite songwriter and musician. I didn’t say he is the best, though I can’t think of a better harp player, but I’ve long felt that Steve Howe is the best guitarist. But if you listen to his body of work and include his solo releases, starting with Olias of Sunhillow, there are few artists that can fly so close to the sun. The...